Tag Archives: vip dev

Dear Dr. Dev, My boyfriend just saw a really scary story on the internet about thousands of British and French women who have silicone breast implants that leak and are harming them. One woman apparently died. You did my breast augmentation two years ago, with silicone breast implants, and now I’m a mess with the fear! Should I come in to have them removed?

YOU SHOULD IMMEDIATELY…RELAX! That’s, right, relax because you have nothing to worry about. The implants manufactured by the company responsible, Poly Implant Prothèse (a French company), have been banned in Europe and the CEO faces potential criminal charges for the death of the woman you reference in your post. This has nothing to do with you or any other woman who has had a breast augmentation procedure at my Bakersfield, California plastic surgery practice.

Here’s the rundown though: Of the approximately 30,000 French women who had a breast augmentation with Poly Implant Prothèse’s silicone implants, about 1,000 have reported rupturing, causing intense pain and swelling. Another 40,000 in the UK have similar problems. Poly Implant Prothèse’s silicone implants are now banned, and French officials insist that women with those implants get them removed. You, on the other hand hand, had your breast augmentation in Bakersfield, so you can relax—my breast implants are made right here in the good ole USA and are FDA approved.

Thanks for the valuable question because I’m sure others maybe be wondering the same thing.

Lots of women come into my Bakersfield Plastic Surgery practice because their breasts are sagging due to age, weight loss/gain cycles and/or pregnancy and breastfeeding. Also, many women come in because their tummies are sagging for the same reasons, plus stretch marks that they absolutely hate. Here in Bakersfield, I do hundreds of breast augmentations in the course of a year, as well as breast lifts and breast reductions. As well, we do hundreds of tummy tucks and liposuction, too. What we also do is a combination procedure called a “Mommy Makeover.”

What I mean by the phrase “combination procedure,” is that it’s a breast enhancement plus a tummy tuck and, often, a bit of liposuction as well. The goal of a Mommy Makeover is to return my patient’s body to its younger state, when the breasts were firm and high and the tummy was flat and firm, with most, if not all, of the stretch marks gone for good!

Some women wonder when it’s the best time to have a Mommy Makeover. If you’re completed your family and don’t plan any more pregnancies, you can have a Mommy Makeover anytime after you have recovered from childbearing. I suggest my moms wait until they are finished breastfeeding, because having a baby on the breast just after a breast enhancement can be really uncomfortable, as well as the pressure of the baby’s weight on a tummy that’s recovering from a tummy tuck. But so long as you’re otherwise healthy, you can benefit from a Mommy Makeover whether your youngest is 1 or 50! And, you don’t need to have been a mom to have a Mommy Makeover. Losing weight and growing older are two perfect reasons to enjoy a more youthful figure–I really see, in my happy patients, that when their bodies are tight and trim, they feel younger! And feeling younger makes them feel happier, more sexy, more alive.

Further, I often do a bit of body sculpting with liposuction during a Mommy Makeover, just to eliminate stubborn areas of fat that don’t go away with diet and exercise. It really finishes up the picture in a wonderful way. As an added bonus, the fat that’s removed during liposuction can be used to plump up areas of the body that need a bit more fat, such as the lips, the face, the back of the hands or the buttocks.

My patients often tell me that their “new figure” has awakened their interest in shopping for clothes and paying more attention to diet and exercise, not to mention the “rev up” they’re enjoying in their sex lives at home, thanks to their “new body”!

If you’ve had some thoughts about your body and they aren’t pleasant ones, come in and see me. In no time at all, you’ll be able to look in the mirror–whether you have clothes on or not–and smile back at your renewed figure!

Everyone knows that regular exercise is essential for a healthy body. Here’s something new: researchers have been busy researching ways to delay the muscle shrinkage that comes with aging and sedentary lifestyle.

Dafna Benayahu, with the Tel Aviv University in Israel, and his colleagues studied lab rats to see whether endurance exercise would increase the number of muscle stem cells, which are the cells that decrease as humans age, leading to muscle weakness in the elderly.

They compared rats of different ages and sexes. What they found was pretty amazing: the number of muscle stem cells grew after the rats ran on a treadmill for 20 minutes a day for a 13-week period.

Although the younger rats showed a 20% to 35% increase in the average number of stem cells per muscle fiber retained, the older rats benefited even more, with a 33% to 47% increase in stem cells!

The researchers are hoping that this study will help them identify new ways to increase muscle stem cells in humans, so we could help maintain muscle strength as we age.

The FDA has long been concerned about the amount of unidentified acetaminophen in prescription drugs such as Vicodin, Percocet, Lortab, Fioricet, and Roxicet. According to the FDA reports, acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, is often found in large amounts in these, and other, prescription pain meds. Although when taken in normal doses Tylenol is very safe but when added to prescription pain pills, consumers can ingest large amounts of acetaminophen, which can lead to emergency room visits, hospitalizations, liver damage and even death. Statistics show that last year over 56,000 hospital ER visits, 26,000 hospital admissions and 458 deaths occurred due to acetaminophen overdose. In fact, it’s the leading cause of acute liver failure here in the US, because it’s so easy to take too much of it.

Within the next three years, the FDA has dictated that:

Prescription pain drugs can contain no more than 325 milligrams of acetaminophen per pill or spoonful. Currently, some of these drugs contain as much as 750 milligrams of acetaminophen.

Prescription pain drugs will carry the FDA’s strongest “black box” warning label. That label will warn of the risk of serious liver injury.

Obviously, these changes apply only to prescription drugs.

“When taken as directed, acetaminophen is a very safe product. Our goal is to make it even safer,” Sandra Kweder, deputy director of the FDA’s office of new drugs, said at a news teleconference.

Our advice is to be aware of the acetaminophen in any prescription drug you take, as well as OTC (over-the-counter) medications, as 4,000 mg has been shown to cause liver damage. If you don’t know if there’s acetaminophen in a pain, cold or other preparation, whether OTC or by prescription, ask the pharmacist to explain it to you. Better safe than sorry!

Dr. Charles Soparkar, an oculoplastic surgeon at The Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas and his fellow researchers have performed a study showing that by ingesting a combination of organic zinc plus the enzyme phytase for a period of four days before receiving Botox or Dysport injections made the toxin 93% more effective. As a result of this good news, the researchers have filed for a patent of the two supplements. It’s called ZYTAZE™ and will be available any day now. Although most of the patients in the study were being treated for a rare form of eyelid spasm, this research is great news for everyone who gets injections of Botox or Dysport for cosmetic reasons.

“Surprisingly, the results showed that in over 90% of the patients studied, the zinc/phytase combination resulted in a remarkable improved responsiveness to treatment of blepharospasm using the same amount of botulinum toxin as previously used,” said Soparkar. “The toxins seemed to have greater effect and last longer. Potentially, this could mean using less toxin, offering patients financial savings, greater safety, and more consistent results.”

ZYTAZE is licensed to OCuSOFT, Inc., a company that focuses its efforts on ophthalmic research and development.

If the prescription isn’t too expensive, it could result in an overall savings for those using Botox or Dysport for wrinkle reduction, as less of the toxin will be needed and the results will last longer. I’ll update you as soon as I hear any further news on this topic.

Laser technology for cosmetic usage has been around for the past 40 years, but has come into its own in the past five years, offering men and women a variety of treatments including hair removal, body sculpting and skin resurfacing. Occasionally, a patient will ask me how the laser actually works. Truth is, until recently, nobody has known the exact underlying processes that occur with lasers! Is it the laser light that motivates the collagen to rebuild or is it the heat that the laser delivers?

A researcher by the name of Susanne Dams, with Philips Research Eindhoven, conducted her own studies on lasers to find the answers.

Dams treated cell cultures and human skin with heat shocks of 45 and 60 degrees Centigrade, without using a laser light. (This is equivalent to 113 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, so 113-140 is hot but not boiling hot.) Her results show that the heat shocks increased the production of collagen. When laser light was added, the only measureable difference was the ability of the laser to pinpoint the exact location of heat delivery. This is an important part of the treatment, inasmuch as heating smaller areas of skin is safer than heating larger areas of skin. In fact, her study also showed that heating the skin to 113 degrees Fahrenheit for 8-10 seconds was the optimal amount of heat to increase collagen. Above that temperature there is no added benefit and, in fact, causes skin cell damage.

Collagen is a skin protein that gives skin elasticity and firmness, the “bounce back” that young skin enjoys. Beginning in the mid-20’s, our collagen production begins to decrease, leading to wrinkles and sagging skin.

Three ways to increase your collagen levels

Studies show that there are 3 primary collagen-builders for those of us in the over-30 crowd:

Laser Skin Treatments:

Although the CO2 laser is considered the Gold Standard for skin resurfacing, the after-effects force patients to hide from the world for 2-3 weeks as their faces crust over and peel. Not a pretty site and most people don’t have 2-3 weeks to spend for recovery. Fraxel treatments and even chemical peels can obtain similar results, with little to no downtime. Instead of one big treatment, chemical peels and fractionated laser treatments are divided into 4-6 treatments, giving essentially the same results without the recovery time.

Retinoids:

Retin-A is the only topical skin treatment that is proven to increase collagen. No matter what they tell you on TV, this is a fact. For those in need of this, I can prescribe Retin-A.

Hyaluronic Acid Fillers:

Fillers made with hyaluronic acid, such as Juvederm, Restylane and Perlane, have been shown to increase collagen. This explains why, over time, you may need less filler each time you come in for a filler treatment. It’s not because you retain the filler from the last treatment, but because your own collagen is rebuilding.

Some things that damage collagen, by the way, are sun exposure and tobacco usage. If you want to keep your looks, use a good sunscreen and don’t smoke!

Fat or dermal fillers are often used to fill out that part of that face needing a bit more substance, such as the temples and the nasolabial folds, the “parentheses” mentioned in the TV ads.

Recently, however, University of Rochester Medical Center researchers, joined by colleagues from Harvard and Stanford, discovered that the gradual erosion of bone over time may contribute to the aging facial appearance. We all know that as we age many of us become shorter. It’s not a stretch to imagine that other bones get smaller, too. These researchers contend, after studying the CT scans of 120 faces, that the facial bones also shrink with age. Apparently, beauty isn’t skin deep—it’s bone deep.

The 120 CT scans were divided by age into three groups: those 20-36, 41-64 and 65 and older. The facial bones were measured in each age group to see if the facial bones of the older individuals’ were smaller. They were. This research may lead to future face lift procedures that include bone grafts to the jaw or the use of plastic prosthetics to “beef up” the lower face and create the more youthful results.

If you’re noticing bone loss in your face, come in and talk to me about bone restoration as part of your facial rejuvenation procedure.

Dr. Vip Dev enjoys a distinguished surgical and academic career. He has authored or co-authored over 30 publications in General, Reconstructive and Plastic Surgery, as well as aesthetic techniques. His busy office in Bakersfield, CA offers aesthetic & reconstructive plastic surgery as well as and skin rejuvenation.